World Map. Everything is based off of this. Each terrain square needs to hold data on terrain, elevation and natural/man made features. Implement first with no unique graphics, small map (20*20 to start).
Cities-the next most critical element. Cities grow/shrink, can have improvements built in them, are centers of production, etc. Considering several simplifications on the current city model: city limit of about 10 cities, to simplify city control; Automatic city terraforming-you can set the desired terraform goal (production, economy, growth) but all terraforming is done automatically; Limited improvement model-a city has a limited improvement choices-reduces time on building improvements, also creates strategic limitations on city development (what type of improvements to focus on).
Armies-because the use of many individual units in Alpha Centauri seems to require the most time and fine UI control, I am considering a change from individual units to armies(this method is similar to the one used in the "Heroes of Might and Magic" series). Each city can support an army and a garrison. The army is a mobile group of units that can attack other armies and cities. The garrison is the local city defense, and is immobile. Individual units are constructed but are assigned either to a garrison or an army, bolstering the statistics of the overall group. Each army/garrison will have a number of different attributes that can be adjusted by adding units to the army. For example, adding artillery units will bolster an army's artillery rating, while adding flying units boosts it's airpower rating.
Expansion of basic game mechanics will be the next goal. Specifically, we will focus on the following:
Expanding the world map: Currently, the world map only encompasses what we can see directly on-screen. A scrollable world map with a larger area will be one of the first goals to implement.
Graphic Information-rurrently, graphics give only very basic information. They will be updated to deliver more information at a glance
Technology, Armies and Cities-Techonological upgrades allow for the building of more advanced units and improvements in cities. A simple technology interface should be implemented and the appropriate additions made to the city and army mechanics
Unit Designer-One of the unique elements in Alpha Centauri was the ability to design custom units. This functionality will be built back into Centauri Lite.
Basic AI-AI is currently unwritten at any level. Development will focus on creating simple, tactical level AIs that can attack cities, armies while creating and defending cities of their own.
A city will be composed of the following attributes: Population, Nutrients, Production, Energy, Unrest and Eco-Damage. Each city has it's own army and garrision. Population is based on nutrients-it grows with excess nutrients, or starves when lacking nutrients. Nutrients, Production and Energy are based on the resources extracted from the adjacent tiles and their improvements plus bonuses from city improvements. Unrest is based on the size of the city's army (minus order), size of the garrison (more order) and improvement bonuses. High Unrest negatively affects production (Note-no individual citizens, or riots).
A city will have a limited number of upgrade slots based on it's population. Each city will start with 1 upgrade slot and will gain an additional slot per 4 citizens up to a maximum of 4. Certain buildings may be upgraded-a network node may be upgraded to a science lab once the pre-requsite techonlogy is researched. Upgrading is faster and costs less resources than building the upgraded improvment from scratch.
The terraforming model will be simplified as follows: Every army and garrison will have a seperate attribute called army engineering. This attribute can be boosted by adding former units to your army. Any square adjacent to an army or garrison with a positive army engineering attribute may be terraformed.
On land, movement speed is based on the average speed of the units in your army. So if I have an army completely composed of movement 1 troops, it will move at speed 1, completely composed of movement 2 troops, moves at speed 2. If I have a mixed force, I take the average speed (i.e. 1.5). In this case, the army will move at speed 1 but receive a bonus movement square every other turn. So if the average speed was 1.1, the army would receive a bonus square every 10 turns, etc.
An army will receive an "air strike" option when an airforce element is included-this works like bombardment, where the army can attack a unit several squares away from it. For movement bonuses based on air transport/paratroops/orbital drop troops, the system works as follows: The army must be located at a city/friendly airbase. Based on the composition of air units, they will build up a movement bonus, like the system for land movement bonuses. So if the force is 50% airforce, they will build up the movement bonus in 1 turn. The bonus will allow the army to "jump" to an empty square/friendly base.
At each costal city, you will have the option of creating either a navy or an army. Navies can support air units if they have ships w/flight decks, and can transport land armies if they have enough transport units to transport the entire army.